Wayne H. Pitcher

PROCESS ENGINEERING FOR INDUSTRIAL ENZYME REACTORS

The purpose of this paper is to review the engineering and design of immobilized enzyme (IME) reactor systems. Since reactor design and the types of data required to develop an immobilized enzyme system have been thoroughly discussed by this author and others in the past, the topic will be treated from a slightly different, perhaps more practical, viewpoint. In fact, simplicity, reliability, efficient enzyme use, system stability (or enzyme half-life) are more important than sophisticated reactor design or exotic enzyme immobilization procedures. This paper addresses process design and development from the standpoint of efficient enzyme immobilization, obtaining the maximum reaction rate for the amount of enzyme used, and immobilized enzyme stability. These two factors, initial activity and half-life, are the key to determining system performance and cost.